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by honooko



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 02:59:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honooko/pseuds/honooko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Barstow California in 2006, Nino spent six weeks filming 'Letters from Iwojima'. He was very, very lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

Hollywood was hot and humid, and he stepped out of the airport feeling both very at home and very out of place at the same time. It was like Tokyo in June, except that this wasn’t June at all, but February, and he realized with a start that the sweater he’d brought would be about as useful as the warm coat tucked under one arm. Everyone was tall, he noticed, tall and storming forwards like they were on a mission from the Powers That Be, and he found himself weaving across the gate just trying not to be trampled.

“Nino-kun,” his manager’s voice said somewhere near his elbow, and he found himself being steered carefully to the side as they stopped to squint at the directions on the overhead sign. ‘TAXIS’, said the sign; ‘TICKETING’ and ‘BAGGAGE CLAIM’. Stark white letters on a grey sign that almost made sense if he tilted his head some. ‘TAXIS’, at least, he understood.

‘CLAIM’, he thought he knew from somewhere; the word rang familiar when he moved his tongue around it, soft and barely audible. ‘Claim no Arashi’, his brain reminded him, and Nino suddenly had to drop his head and concentrate on breathing past the sharp ache under his breastbone.

They’d sent him off properly; nabe and a round of alcohol, making no efforts to hide how much they were going to miss him. In return, Nino was able to smile even as he said he’d miss them just as much. They couldn’t stay out long; Nino’s flight left early, earlier a time than he wanted to think about (counting down the hours left in his head; 12 hours, 9 hours, 7 hours until he wasn’t part of Arashi, with Arashi, in Arashi). They let him lean and touch more than they normally would; Jun even ran his hand up and down across Nino’s shaved hair for a while, the motion soothing and comforting.

Ohno ate and drank with his right hand, holding Nino’s right tightly in his left.

“Let’s try just following the crowd,” the manager said after a moment, jerking Nino back into the present. So they took off, Nino’s elbow still locked in the iron grip of his manager, like a child who had a tendency to wander off (‘Like Oh-chan,’ Nino thought with a twinge of his heart. ‘Oh-chan would get lost, not me.’) As they came down the escalator towards what Nino realized was Baggage Claim (the sign making sudden, perfect sense), he spotted an older gentleman with a plain white rectangle held above his head; the word ‘NINOMIYA’ written on it.

“Kase-san is already here,” the translator said when they reached him. “We can get your other bags and leave immediately.”

As the manager explained that there were no other bags (Nino packed light; no need to strain himself dragging suitcases when he could bring a weeks worth and just wash them) Nino realized he hadn’t actually spoken a single word since they landed, and possibly before.

It was a terribly lonely feeling.

~

They spend the first few days just setting shots and scenes, giving everyone time to settle into their roles and find that vein of truth to draw on. Find what you have in common, find where you relate, and use that to drown yourself in another person’s existence. The sun of Barstow beat down relentlessly and Nino remembered how Sho had said Barstow was a desert, hotter than Phoenix during the summer, but with cold desert nights that send icy shivers across any exposed skin. The air buzzed with heat and Nino found it not so hard to pretend that the weather made him miserable.

He heard English and felt far away from home; he heard Japanese and felt even farther.

~

Nino turned down the offer for a laundry service to save a bit of money, making the trek to the Laundromat in town. At first he’d tried to ask for help, unsure if the process was different from back home, but either his English was bad, or the clerk’s was worse, because only a string of unintelligible syllables followed his questions, and he gave up. Instead, he sat on a machine to claim it and watched a few people filter in to do their own washing. He noticed several young men in camouflage and remembered Barstow was a military town; the soldiers living here seemed to outnumber the women.

Once he had the process down, he managed to finish his own with little incident; Nino had been careful to learn American money before he left, not trusting strangers to be honest when giving him change.

After he got back to his trailer, his few clothes folded and neatly put away, he was filled with the urge to call Jun and boast his success at conquering the laundry. Jun would appreciate it, no doubt, and maybe even congratulate him on managing the admittedly simple task.

But his phone would not call to Japan; he had a large, bulky American rental for his time here, used only to call his manager and the staff on set. His Japanese mobile sat lonesome on the table, unused except for when Nino picked it up to re-read the emails the members had sent him off with. Jun’s in particular he liked; it was both encouraging and reassuring, reminding him that Arashi was proud of him, and Arashi would wait for him.

The night before, Nino had stood in his shower (the water never quite hot enough, too soft to wash and too weak to loosen sore muscles in his shoulders and back) and remembered how Jun’s voice got softer when he was pleased, warm and heavy and ghosting across his ear. Jun was restrained with touch, only so much as he felt was absolutely necessary and making full use of what he did indulge in. Nino leaned against the wall of the shower, tile digging into his shoulder and the water starting to lose what little heat it had as he stroked himself and tried to pretend it wasn’t his hand but Jun’s. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the spots of color from painted nails and Jun’s breath on his ear, his jaw, his neck, and could almost hear the way Jun would very nearly moan his name if he was in the right mood—

As soon as Nino’s ears stopped ringing, he was alone again in a trailer in Barstow, California, naked and standing under an icy stream of water from a grungy rusted showerhead.

He didn’t cry, but acknowledged to himself that this was, in fact, the perfect time to do so.

~

“Cheese hamburger,” Nino said. “Potatoes. Potatoes? Fried potatoes.”

The cashier blinked at him, frowning.

“Cola. M?” Nino asked hopefully. The cashier looked suddenly offended, and Nino hurriedly scanned the menu again hoping it might make more sense the second time. It didn’t. He made a few more attempts before a bag was placed in front of him and a number rattled off quickly. Nino paid and stepped back, having no idea what was going to be inside the bag.

A cheeseburger, and a small fry. He realized a bit belatedly that the entire word for the size was needed here, rather than the letter like in Japan. No drink whatsoever.

He ate it anyway, finishing and not feeling full, and wondering if Ohno was getting ramen without him. Probably, Ohno was habitual with his ramen trips, and Nino being gone wasn’t really a good reason to break from the pattern.

Maybe he wasn’t having as much fun, though. Guiltily, Nino hoped so.

~

Nino tried to watch TV, but American TV seemed to be mostly people yelling, or people having sex, both of which were only interesting for a few minutes at most. He finally found a station of cartoons that at least didn’t make him want to gag.

Aiba would have liked these, he thought wistfully. Sight gags work in any language; not to mention Aiba’s English vocabulary was random enough he probably knew a fair few words being used on the show. Aiba would have laughed, high and giggly, his eyes crinkling up exactly like his mother’s. Every joke would work on Aiba, because Aiba loved to laugh, and even if it wasn’t funny, he would find a way to make it funny just so he could hold his stomach and burst out in giggles.

He laughed in bed, too, Nino remembered. His fingers would tickle up Nino’s sides and he’d snicker into the skin of Nino’s shoulder, amused with himself and the world at large. And gradually the laughter would quiet to be replaced by low, rough groans as his body slid against Nino’s in a long, lithe motion.

Nino was once again touching himself, lost in the memory, the fantasy. Aiba’s natural tan would be stark against Nino’s gamer’s pale, playful in his touches and movements and radiating unnatural energy. Nino would keen and Aiba would lip at his throat and even as Aiba came his eyes would be laughing.

Nino cleaned himself off and felt vaguely sick at the wash of loneliness that followed.

~

During shooting, Nino was completely focused. He memorized his lines quickly, and each scene was performed with his absolute best. Clint Eastwood murmured quiet praise, which Nino accepted meekly before darting off to a corner, alone. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his fellow cast; it was just that no matter what, he felt awkward, out of place. Nothing he said felt natural, nothing he did felt right.

So he stayed to the side, quiet and alone.

Kase Ryo commented on it; “Sakurai-kun always said you were noisier,” he teased, smiling. Nino laughed, but it sounded empty to his own ears.

“Sakurai-kun exaggerates,” Nino responded, an excuse as much as an explanation. Ryo left, and Nino tried not to think about how that might have been his chance to get rid of his homesickness for a while.

~

His dream that night was strictly Sho; Sho’s voice and Sho’s eyes and Sho’s hair tickling at his skin, across his hipbones (sharp and boyish, forever younger than his years). Muscles bunched under Nino’s hands and he focused on the way Sho would softly moan his pleasure when Nino’s lips found just the right spot behind his ear.

Sho liked sex simple, intense, and cut no corners in foreplay. He loved to trace the edges of Nino’s body and map the hollows of his skin with his fingertips just as much as he loved to see Nino arch, mouth open and wordless as his eyes fall shut and his body carries on without conscious thought.

Nino woke up dirty and cold, and had to grab a pillow and squeeze for a long while before he felt like he could get up without falling to pieces.

~

His manager brought tapes for him to watch; Music Station and Utaban were only slightly more awkward than he’d hoped, and less than he’d expected. The choreography was different when the number was four instead of five and he caught someone starting to do the wrong dance twice. But Arashi was making a valiant effort to be as strong as they were with Nino, and he finished the videos and felt proud of them.

G no Arashi was a little stranger; he laughed more than he had since he’d left, for real, and the frequency that he was mentioned assured him that they had in no way forgotten him. Fight Song echoed through his mind and he decided to count how long until he got back instead of how long he’d been away.

He kept working hard, harder than he had in his entire life, on the tiniest dim hope that he might be allowed to return to Japan for a weekend as a reward.

~

Ohno was fairly constantly in his mind; his face or his voice or his hands hovering just at the back of Nino’s awareness. The movie only further reminded him; Saigo was a baker, like Ohno had dreamed of, from the town of Ohmiya. The irony did not escape Nino’s notice.

He sat on his bed that evening and breathed Ohno’s name, over and over, like a chant that might summon him if he concentrated hard enough. His hand moved up and down his cock as he imagined Ohno’s long fingers, Ohno’s lips on his, Ohno’s hisses of pleasure. Ohno had sex like he danced; controlled and rhythmic and following whichever pace he himself set. Nino could almost taste the skin of Ohno’s back where he liked to lick at the shift of sinew beneath it.

Nino came at the same time as the corners of his eyes burned, and he scrubbed at his face with a sleeve, growling. He would not cry, _could_ not cry. His friends weren’t crying, they were doing what they had to do and keeping everything running smoothly until he got back.

He grabbed his phone; the chances of an email getting through were slim, but he could try. Nino’s messages were full of everything running through his head (I miss you, I wish I was there, I wish you were here, I’ll be home soon, soon) and possibly the sappiest thing he’d ever admitted to where his friends would be able to see, but he sent them.

Then he fell back onto the bed into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

~

Clint Eastwood called them together and asked them to remember what their character’s goals were, what they were fighting for. Nino considered the question; Saigo’s family? His livelihood? His life?

Clint looked at him and said, “What do you want more than anything else at this precise moment in time?”

And without needing to think, Nino answered in English, “I want to go home.”

Clint smiled, nodding approvingly.

~

“Oh-chan?”

“Nino?!” Ohno’s voice buzzed across the line, and Nino knew he must have melted a little by the knowing expression on his manager’s face. They only had a few minutes to talk, but a few minutes was all that he needed.

“Oh-chan, how are you?” Nino asked, feeling lighter than he had in weeks.

“I miss you,” Ohno said immediately. “It’s lonely, without Nino. We keep waiting for you to make the joke, and then it’s quiet and we remember.”

“I miss you too,” Nino said, utterly sincere.

“Come home soon,” Ohno said, his voice small and pouty.

“Idiot,” Nino answered with a grin. “I’m coming home tomorrow, remember?”

“Can we pick you up?”

Nino paused, momentarily overwhelmed with affection for Ohno, for Sho, for Jun and Aiba and their collection of people that somehow needed each other equally across the five. Ohno’s offer rang through the silence.

“I’d like that,” Nino said honestly. “I’ll see you soon, Oh-chan.”


End file.
